Earlier tonight, I finished watching the Discovery Channel’s six-part documentary When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions. While I have watched and read much about the history of NASA and its journey into space, I was surprised at the amount of new footage the space agency had provided for this series, letting viewers see images that previously had only been seen by a select few. From the Mercury missions to the continued building of the International Space Station today, you hear about the accomplishments and tragedies of space exploration by the people who experienced it firsthand.

When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions is currently available in the iTunes Store for the bargain price of $10.99.

I received an email from the Managing Editor of Schmap Guides letting me know that one of my photos was selected to be part of their updated Philadelphia Guide! Sure it is just a picture of a cheese steak, but it was from the famous Rick’s Steaks in the Reading Terminal Market in downtown Philadelphia, and mighty tasty!

Schmap Philadelphia Guide

Honda Indy 200 Qualifying @ Mid-Ohio (July 19, 2008)
Pictures taken during the qualifying day festivities of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio in Lexington, OH. Other racing included SCCA qualifying and the Acura Sports Car Challenge.

I’ve also posted some pictures of an interesting Royal Walnut Moth we encountered on our way home.

While I was pretty impressed with the new camera on its first real test, I was painfully reminded that if I want to take photos at these events (i.e. sports), I really need to invest in a good, high quality telephoto lens. The one that I’m particularly interested in is the Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens (as well as the EF 1.4x II Extender for those situations where a little more reach is needed), however I don’t have another $1,000 available at this time. So, I guess I’ll just have to keep practicing with the Tamron 17-50 in the meantime...

I snapped this photo while playing with Phoebe in the front yard at my parent’s house this past weekend and really like how it turned out. It is a little out of focus; I need to rememeber to adjust my aperture to something smaller than f/2.8 when necessary.

(Click on the photo to download the full-resolution version.)

Well, I survived a trip home to visit the parents with it, so I figure it’s safe to post here. After much deliberation (OK, really not that much by normal standards), I decided to take advantage of Canon’s $200 instant rebate program and purchased my very first DSLR: the Canon EOS 40D.

Considered by most to be Canon’s flagship “prosumer” model, the 40D features a 10.1MP sensor, DIGIC III processor, Live View, and a fast 6.5fps continuous burst mode. To compliment the body, I purchased a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens after reading some glowing reviews on various online forums. While it does not feature Image Stabalization like the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens, it cost significantly less without sacrificing optics quality. I also purchased a Tamrac Express 7 bag (smaller bag with room for another lens), and a fast Sandisk Extreme III 4GB CompactFlash card to ensure the card can keep up with the photo buffer.

I’m putting the finishing touches on the pictures I took at Mid-Ohio this weekend with this camera and will post a link, as well as some more thoughts on this camera, as soon as they are all online.

Afternoon on Lake Pleasant in Michigan (July 12, 2008)
Cheryl and I went to one of her friend's cottages on Lake Pleasant in southern Michigan for the day for a day of fun in the sun.




Next weekend should be an exciting one as I’m heading to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. Dad was able to get tickets from Honda, which makes the deal even better. The weekend includes and IndyCar race, an American Le Mans Series race, and SCCA Speed World Challenge Touring and GT races. I’ll definitely be there on Saturday and hope to take a lot of great pictures from various points around the course.

It may not be officially released yet, but I have already downloaded and installed the iPhone 2.0 firmware. This enables a bunch of new features, most notably support for the iTunes App Store. They have also included the ability to take screenshots of the iPhone display (hold Home button and press Sleep button on the top of the phone). I’ve already installed a couple programs including the AIM client, Exposure (Flickr client), Super Monkey Ball, Remote (remote control iTunes + AppleTV), and WeatherBug. So far, I’m liking the upgrade! =)

It appears that the developers of RapidWeaver have fixed an issue, referenced in this previous post, with links and photos not displaying correctly in the generated RSS feed when using a .mac personal domain account. Now let’s just hope Apple doesn’t break anything when they flip the switch for MobileMe (rumored to happen on July 9).

As long as you are subscribed to the new RSS feed address (http://feeds.feedburner.com/nateut), you’re all set!

Celebtrating the 4th at Fifth Third Field (July 4, 2008)
Cheryl and I head downtown to celebrate the 4th of July by watching the Toledo Mud Hens take on the Columbus Clippers and the two fireworks displays afterwards.


I also posted some miscellaneous photos to the Unsorted Pictures set.